


show me love, damaged love

by StrangeHormones



Category: From Beyond (1986)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Choking, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeHormones/pseuds/StrangeHormones
Summary: crawford tillinghast x reader| it’s the thought. the simple thought that burns like wildfire until it consumes you. all that matters now, is burning with another
Relationships: Crawford Tillinghast/Reader
Kudos: 7





	show me love, damaged love

All he ever seems to dream about anymore is you. The sweet scent of your hair, the lilt of your voice, the way you always seem to smile at him. When the sun is high and his mind is aware that’s as far as it goes. Save a few rampant thoughts about if your lips would taste as sweet as your fruity lip gloss suggested. But at night he has no power over the thoughts, no ability to stop them when they pass where his innocent daydreaming dare not tread. If Crawford was being truly honest with himself he didn’t want the dreams to stop. They would be the closest to intimacy with you he would ever have. As long as he knew it wasn’t real, he could relish in it. That was the deal he had wordlessly made with himself after the first dream. After he’d felt your soft skin beneath his hand, watched your pupils dilate as the world no doubt began to blacken at the edges for you and the rush of pleasure that had come with him allowing you to breathe again. The next morning he had so many questions about himself and when you smiled at him, so unaware of everything that lurked beneath the surface, he felt far too much like their mentor for his liking. As if he was somehow making you dirty. As long as they were at night and he knew they weren’t real, then he wasn’t. He couldn’t be faulted. He wasn’t in control.

Until he was.

You weren’t supposed to be there. It was far too late and you were alone. At least, you _had_ been alone. If he hadn’t been up tangled in thoughts of you, he wouldn’t have heard the slight creak of the step. Somehow Crawford had known it was you or maybe he had dreamed it was you and had somehow conjured you into being. The more experiments that had been ran, the more the line between here and there, dreams and reality, had begun to shift. Especially in the dark. _Especially around you_. 

“You should be asleep,” he watches you jump, the skin across your exposed arms rise, watching the hem of your oversized t-shirt twirl as you did, “And you shouldn’t be up here,” if you even really are.

The fabric is short. Far too short for polite company but just perfect for this moment. Nothing quite on display but every curve so heavily alluded to it was impossible to ignore. Crawford is unable to help himself, feeling more and more sure by the moment that this can’t quite be real. It feels nothing like a dream either. Though more and more often they had felt less like apparitions and more memories.

“I understand now,” your fingers reaching back to caress the freezing metal seemed unconscious, “Why he brings them here first,” that small smile he’s come to know well twists into a smirk he’s only dared imagine, “I never knew that side of me existed and now…” you exhale a ragged breath, “I shouldn’t be up here.”

There are a thousand ways he could have stopped you. In the waking world, he might have grabbed your hand or simply called out. But even if they are on this side of reality, it ended at the first attic step and everything now was calculated chaos. He doesn’t mean to wrap his fingers around that perfect throat. But once he does it’s the only thing in his mind. You don’t fight. Don’t try to escape. Just look up at him with too many emotions to pick apart. More than he’s ever imagined.

His fingers flex, tightening, you gasp and then almost moan. Almost. His grip cutting off your airway ever so slightly. He watches your chest arch towards him, your eyes flutter close, he watches you become everything he wanted. If only he knew… His hand drops, the whimper dragged from your throat is not lost to him. You don’t open your eyes, giving him the opportunity to let this be your dream. Perhaps, it was. Had he climbed from his own subconscious to yours? Was that why the very feeling of consciousness contradicted itself with every passing second?

As much as he longs to feel your breath stutter in his grip, he can’t like this. His control will give him that and that alone. Quite possibly only for tonight. It’s his turn to leave you to question creaking wood and what had crackled between the two of you for those brief seconds. He leaves you to muse on the subject of lust and what it is you truly want. Having answered those questions long ago, it had left him with little strength to fight against you, and there was a deep ache for you to find the same sensation. An uncontrollable longing that threatened to destroy anything but the sensation of need.

That morning he expects to find you as he always does. Making breakfast in that oversize tee and sweatpants, a heavy reminder that it had all been an oddly realistic fantasy and nothing more. He’s ready with practiced responses, only to find the kitchen empty. No sign either of you had been in here since cleaning up dinner the night before. His breath catches in his throat before turning and unabashedly hurrying to your bedroom door. Hands gripping the cool wood of the door frame, his breath comes in pants. What now? What was he meant to do in the light?

He has no answers, standing there barely a few seconds when the door opens. Slowly, worried you’ve imagined him. In the sunlight, he can see it. Every part you’ve hidden since the experiments began. The reflection of himself he had spent far too long desperate for. Whether this was truly reality or some shared ethereal consciousness, neither of you knew. Only that it felt real. The very definition of the word. His grip releases before he splinters the wood. You’re such a beautiful mess of desire that there was no stopping what happens next.

The door slamming closed is lost to the panting breaths shared between you as his hand curls around your neck once more. You bite your lip, his squeeze not quite cutting off your moan all together. The vibration against his hand is intoxicating, he wants it everywhere.

“Please,” you’re not sure what you’re asking for. Only that Crawford is the only one capable of giving it to you, “Please.”

He knows. Dreaming it so often it’s little more than instinct that pulls your lips to his. The gentleness steals what little of your breath is left. You’ve never felt the heat blooming across your skin, an insatiable need that comes straight from between your legs. The ones desperately rubbing against each other in search of friction. It does nothing to calm your exposed nerves. He doesn’t miss a second. Never had he imagined you so wanton, aching for him in ways you were incapable of putting words to. Except for that one. _Please_. He’d never been desperate for a word before and it becomes a dire need in little more than a second. You quiver, his grip never falters, even when your tongue traces the seam of his lips and dares to dip between them without warning. You’re overcome with the subtle taste of mint and the man before you. You’ve become aware of your hands, heavy at your sides and before you can stop them they’ve begun to undo the buttons of his overshirt. Moving faster than you ever had before. 

He rips himself from you with a gasp, throwing himself at the door and all you can manage is a wide-eyed squeak in response. You’ve never seen the look in his eyes but he seems far too busy examining the sight before him. Your swollen lips, the bruise that would bloom around your neck, what lay barely half an inch above where the much too large shirt from your alma mater hung around your thighs. Not even his dreams could imagine this level of pure, unfiltered desire. Nestled between wanting to devour every part of you and desperate for your touch. Gone is the useless button-up, his belt hisses as he rips it from his slacks.

None of this is real. Even if it is, it shouldn’t be. You’re far too beautiful, far too needy for him, far too everything. His mind can’t quantify it, not yet, not now. All he can manage is a sharp inhale when your nails drag along his skin through the thin material of his shirt and the low groan that comes when you pull it achingly slow from the waistband of his slacks. Hiking it over your pinkies as you went to work on the button and zipper, slithering down his body to your knees. He watches, enamored and greedy, hand cupping the back of your neck when you held his half-hard member in your hand and sucked the tip into your mouth. Your eyes focused entirely on his face, your mouth moving farther down his growing length, hand trailing up the dark hair dusting of hair on his stomach, curving to caress his ribs. The other keeps his hips still, something he’s thankful for as they threaten to stutter at the incarnation of sensuality kneeling before him. So desperate for him you need him inside some part of you as swiftly as possible.

“You’re all I dream about anymore,” he says softly, a whimper falling behind it when you licked along the underside of him and swirling around his tip.

Your nails scrape his skin, watching his heavy cock lift and bounce against his pelvis, “What are your dreams like?” your voice dripping with need, pumping your hand up and down his length as your plant open mouth kisses along his thighs and hips.

“Not this,” he gasps, your teeth scraping along his skin, holding your gaze softly even as you threatened to teeter into the black pit that had no doubt been your own lustful subconscious, eyes hooded, lashes delicately brushing your cheek with each blink, “Not on your knees,” tapping into whatever energy it was that thrummed between you, the one that dipped his curled finger beneath your chin and with the lightest lift was able to bring you back to your feet, it blankets him in confidence, a feeling he’s never felt in the waking world, “Not hurried or crude,” gripping the hem of your shirt and watching as it revealed every inch of your flesh to him, no brassiere to navigate or panties to pinch between nervous fingers as he pulled them down your legs, “ _Not like them_.”

The words make you hum, “I’m real, Crawford,” it’s barely a whisper, a breath that rolls across his lips before his shirt receives the same treatment yours had, “I’m real,” your fingertips drag over his shoulders, his chest, dancing along the slight dips of his ribs, “Are you?”

It’s the realization that you’ve dreamt this moment before, perhaps somewhere your fantasies had become intertwined and giving reality the hazy morning mist of a dream that spins on even upon half-waking. He steals your lips this time more sure, each desperation drenched fantasy so close to becoming a reality that it felt as if he were bursting at the seams. He longs to pull you close, instead, he gently nudges you towards the bed. Sheets still a mess from waking from what he could only assume was a fitful night of sleep chasing pleasures that he could only truly provide you here at this moment. Your knees buckle, the backs hitting the edge, with barely a nudge you fall backward. Arms open, legs spread, you look up at him as if you want to devour his very soul, leaving him in awe of how you can strip him of everything but his uncontrollable need with a bite to the corner of your lips and a jagged breath.

“I’m real,” feeling your toes dig in the loosened waistband of his slacks, tugging enough to get your message across, fingers twisting in the roped sheet beneath your head, “This is real…” his own realization comes with the looming threat of an icy breath of realization that steals his confidence and shatters the moment.

Crawford isn’t given the chance, you dig your heel into the back of his knee, pulling him over you. His only option was to stay in the moment, hands meeting the mattress with nothing but a bounce and unable to stop the rest of his body from blanketing yours. He swallows hard, his straining member trapped between both your pelvis, creating an indescribably friction that just isn’t enough. He’s sure it will never be enough until you can both claw your way into the other’s mind and bask in the hot springs the cosmic torment you’ve both been living has created.

“Please,” your voice is husky, tongue dipping along the curve of his jaw to taste the salt of his skin, “Crawford, please,” he wants to feel guilt, slide to the edge of the bed and let you experience the high of him kneeling at your altar but you’re writhing against him, “I need this to be real,” hungry for him, for his touch, aching to be as close to each other as your treacherous skin would allow. 

He falls back on his knees, working his pants and briefs down to his knees, so he can kick them off. Focused on you, gripping himself tightly in his hand and watching his hand slide along your stomach, between the valley of your breasts, until it took its rightful place around your throat. Squeezing lightly as your pupil blown gaze locked with his, hips canting forward, fingertips daring across what parts of him you can stretch and strain to reach. Low whines punctuate every staccato breath, all he wants is to slip inside but feeling your breath catch when his leaking head rubs against you combined with the warm wetness of your arousal is too much. Your body jolts when he nudges your clit, the silkiness of his shaft moving back and forth against your ignored nub, he tightens his grip along the bruising and you release a hiss that comes from some special place between pain and absolute pleasure. 

_“Please_.”

You’ve never heard your voice so desperate, low, and guttural. It vibrates your insides and he groans, teasing your desperate core with the very tip of his cock, strengthing himself so he didn’t fall apart all while shattering you into a thousand pieces. You manage short breaths from behind his tight grip, moans become squeaks, you’re trusting him with all of you. Life, pleasure, everything he wants from you is his to take. All he’s ever wanted is you, since the first moment he saw you he’s known he’s meant to be a part of you. 

Slowly, with a long moan of his own, he sinks into you until his head presses against the deepest parts inside of you. Your eyes widen, humming what was meant to be a scream, you’ve never been so full. Inside and out. You want more but your aching lungs and his undeniable power over you make every part of you weak. He glides so effortlessly, looking down at you as his destruction of your waking mind brings forth the new reality of his fingers around your neck, emptying and filling you, over and over, you’re sure you can’t take it. Different from your dreams, from your fingers, from anything before. Something is coming, from deep inside, it’s almost like the pleasure you’ve experienced in the darkest recesses of your mind with your fingers buried inside yourself, unable to reach all the raw nerves that he does without thinking. The delicious stretch of him lifts you higher as each limb grows heavier. Edges of the world begin to darken, much as they had in those moments before waking and for barely a second you were left to wonder if this was another cruel trick, doomed to eternally reaching for someone just out of your grasp. His hand falls away from your throat as he falls forward, air fills your lungs at a dizzying speed, and tosses you into oblivion.

Every inch of you grips him, ankles locked behind the small of his back, fingers digging bloody crescents into his flexing shoulder blades, you gasp and scream, bliss oozes from your pores, he can taste it on your skin, feel it leeching its way into his own nerves. He presses hard, hips locked, your vice on him forbidding any movement but behind his undulating hips, fingers holding your cheeks to watch the world open in your eyes. You reach deep inside him, pulling his own release from somewhere he thought untouchable. You’ve fallen for barely a moment before he’s dragging you back skyward. Sharing an impossible moment that shatters the very understanding of a single entity, meant to be forever in that moment with you, joined impossibly in the closest thing mankind may ever experience to a heaven.

He fills you to the brim, a mixture of cum and sweat soak your sheets, running the pointed tip of your tongue along the curve of his neck, his fingers trace the bruises along yours. Sharing small open-mouthed kisses as the haze lifted, the one that reminded you both if this was a dream this is where it would end. But when reality comes crashing you’re still underneath him, managing to calm your breathing, the sensation of him softening inside you but his unwillingness to pull away filling you with a barrage of intimate feelings you’d never expected to feel.

“You’re real,” he kisses your face, soft, loving pecks from forehead to chin, along the bridge of your nose, “You’re real,” until he met your lips, sweeter than ever, full of everything that came in the wake of a universe’s shifting.

Love.


End file.
